Twymans Mill is a crescent-shaped shawl named after my grandparents’ former home. It has a cape-like top edge and uses wrap-less short rows to mimic the lines of a millstone.

Most winters, when Christmas time rolled around, my family spent a few days at my grandparents’ house out in the country. My grandparents loved nothing more than a good story, and they chose their home accordingly. It was at one time a mill, then a post office, a general store, a school, and even once a spooky home for unruly children. The store building, before grandma and grandpa converted it into a library, overflowed with old cans, boxes, and machinery. We found old cobalt blue milk of magnesia bottles behind the shed. An old Pepsi Cola branded cooler proudly displayed its price, “five cents.” Briars covered the one-room school building. Faced with such a setting, my imagination ran wild.

Some years we hunted for the old mill. As far as I know, it was the only building on the property that was completely torn down, and we could only guess at where it used to be. We bundled up and walked around the creek, looking for signs of a building. The mysterious mill inspired this shawl.

This shawl is worked side to side, and you’ll never have more than 144 stitches on your needles at any given time. This pattern is great practice for short rows since it doesn’t use any wraps and includes a row-by-row stitch count so you can make sure you’re doing it right.

Use a solid and coordinating speckle as the pattern recommends OR go wild and switch colors of yarn each section! You can easily customize the length of this shawl by working more repeats of the pattern. As written, the finished size of the shawl is 70” long x 28” wide at its widest points.

This pattern is simple enough to be accomplished by an advanced beginner. NOTE: you will need to aggressively block this shawl to open it up into its final shape, so if you hate blocking this may not be the pattern for you.